


The Final Encore

by dragonofeternal



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Illustrated, M/M, Magic, Street & Stage Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 13:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7509583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofeternal/pseuds/dragonofeternal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the third anniversary of his death, the famous stage magician Judal returns from the grave for one last show.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Final Encore

ι. αℓσηє

Hakuryuu doesn't believe in magic tricks; not anymore. It was always smoke and mirrors anyways. The magic was in Judal's grin, his ability to keep people's eyes on his face and not his too-quick fingers. There was no sorcery in the clockwork tree they bought second-hand off a french watchmaker, the one that made audiences gasp in delight as it bloomed to peaches in moments. It was all Judal. It was all lies.

Hakuryuu barely even has those anymore. 

It's just not worth it; maintaining some elaborate web of lies and deceit. He has no interest in carrying on his family's noble legacy of arms trade, nor any interest in taking up Judal's fallen mantle. Why lie to maintain face, or connections to people he can't give half a shit about? It's pointless. Hakuryuu lives honestly now, lives as a man who does as he pleases. He has money enough from his family to spend most of his days gardening and reading and generally avoiding anything that reminds him of Judal. 

It's hard to maintain that last lie, though, the one that he clings to, the one that says he's okay even though he's lost one of his nearest and dearest friends. 

November. Not even a magical or exciting month. It didn't suit Judal at all to die at a time like that. There had been meteors the following week; they'd been planning to go out to the countryside and watch them together. Hakuryuu had gone alone, and the general consensus was that the 33 year shower was a disappointment for all who bothered to watch. If Judal had been there, they would have laughed about it. 

Hakuryuu shakes his head. He is not usually so given to useless melancholy, but on this rainy, gray November night, marking the three year anniversary of Judal's untimely death, he finds he can't quite shake it. He gets up, pulls a book from the shelf, and settles into his comfortable chair with a warm cup of tea. He had bought a bottle of peach wine the day before, with the intent of drinking it as a memorial, but the thought of alcohol seems inadvisable with his mood. The tea warms his throat, and Hakuryuu hopes it can do the same for his mood.

The book is an old favorite of Judal's: trashy, penny dreadful type stuff, full of action and inappropriate things that would make his sister purse her lips and make a disappointed noise. It's not exactly Hakuryuu's sort of book, and he relishes every filthy line of it. He can practically hear Judal's cackles of delight as he reads over the filthiest parts, and he chuckles under his breath at the memory.

He dozes, at some point, and he's not sure when. It's too exhausting to remember for long. The tolling of his clock awakens him- _bonnnng… bonnnng…_ Twelve long, sonorous chimes heralding the stroke of midnight, and in their wake, a silence that chokes Hakuryuu up with loneliness. There is nothing magic about the witching hour, and he hates how he always hopes the stroke of midnight will bring something different than an empty flat and a dead lover. 

Then the living room explodes into brightly colored flames.

ιι. тнє ϻαgιcιαη

At the height of his popularity, Judal was known throughout London as a man who'd risen from obscure beginnings doing cheap, gorey theatre to the grandest stage magician known to anyone with the cash to see him or the good fortune to catch him doing street shows on a gray afternoon. Bewitchingly beautiful, always crass, and, of course, insanely talented at working a crowd up into thinking that people could really get cut in half and put back together. 

To Hakuryuu, he had been a source of mutual frustration and delight: the most brilliant fool Hakuryuu had ever met. Judal could barely manage his own home, refused adamantly to eat almost all foods that were not fruit, fish, or drowning in sugar, and threw tantrums like a child if he was denied his way. Yet, put him in front of a puzzle or a thing to be solved, put him to a task, and he would be off like a gunshot, whizzing straight to the goal without any regard for sleep or things like "supposed impossibility" that might have stood in his way. 

Hakuryuu should have known that death would be as much of a minor inconvenience as any other that had stood before Judal. 

He crashes into Judal fist first, mouth second, and they're all hands, demands, and Judal's laughing mouth. He fists his hands with the intent to strike, but instead they grab handholds of hair and clothing, and Judal kisses him back twice as fervently. 

"Bastard," Hakuryuu hisses through a kiss, trying to push away, but Judal pulls him back into it. 

"Guilty as charged," he murmurs in reply, his fingers finding a hold in Hakuryuu's dark locks. Hakuryuu shuts him up with another kiss, and they stagger backwards into the wall. Judal's other hand wanders- down his chest, tracing along the unseen line of his scar before yanking at the hem of his pants, pulling Hakuryuu close. Their mouths are hot with the promise of further excitement, and Hakuryuu nips at Judal's neck. He had not forgotten how good it felt to do this; kissing Judal again is like waking from a long and dreadful dream.

And yet, Hakuryuu knows, it was no dream. He shoves Judal away, and Judal laughs, hands held up in defense. "Where have you been?" he demands. "Or, no. Who are you? _What_ are you?" 

This Judal, be he imposter or phantasm, smiles just like the real thing. "I'm me of course." He spreads his arms wide and then swoops into a flourished bow. "The Grand and Fantastic Judal, returned from the grave." He winks at Hakuryuu, and Hakuryuu's gut curdles. 

"Impossible. The dead don't just come back." 

"Then perhaps I was not so dead." Judal sounds proud of himself as he straightens, grinning that lopsided grin of his. Hakuryuu's blood boils with rage, and he rears back to strike Judal. Judal throws his hands up. "Don't hit me! You'll regret it. And you'll ruin my showman's face."

"I'd rearrange it so that no one would recognize you," Hakuryuu hisses. "You bastard. You coward. Where have you been? I thought you were dead! I mourned you, Judal!" 

"I had to, Hakuryuu," Judal implores, trying to lower his hands to grasp Hakuryuu's in comfort. Hakuryuu takes to opening to pop Judal right in the eye. Judal screeches far more than the strike affords and clutches at his eye. "That hurt!! I'm telling the truth." 

"You couldn't tell me where you were going? That you were going? That you were even alive?" Hakuryuu's throat is hot, his vision red and bleary with rage and tears. 

Three years. For three long years he mourned a man who was not dead, who could not care enough to tell him he was alive. Judal looks healthy as ever, if a bit tattered about the edges. Hakuryuu spits on him. 

"Hey! Stop it and let me talk!" There's a harsh edge to Judal's voice that Hakuryuu has seldom heard. He shuts his mouth. "I left for a reason, and it is for that same reason that I'm back now. It'll make sense in time. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you. If there'd been time…" He bites his lip. "But then there isn't really time now. Look Hakuryuu, I'm not here for long, but I needed to see you."

"Oh, disappearing again to whatever new fabulous-"

"Shut up!" Judal winces and looks angry. "I said to let me talk! I don't have much time, and I need your help!" He takes Hakuryuu's hands. "You know… You know how before we met, how I said I always had a thing that I did that made me not give a shit about anything but being the best? That it was what made me so amazing?"

Hakuryuu blinks, a little jarred by the change of topic. "Somewhat? Judal you said a lot of foolish-"

"Well, let's just say it was a mistake. A big mistake. A mistake that made me have to run far, far away from here to keep from ending up dead for real." Judal clutches Hakuryuu's hands tight, staring into his eyes with the manic fervor that made Hakuryuu fall for him in the first place. It is a wondrous and terrifying thing to behold. "I sold my heart."

And Hakuryuu can't help but return the look with a little smile. "I thought you always said your heart was mine?"

And Judal grins back, twice as wide and thrice as devilish. "Why do you think I need your help to get it back?"

ιιι. Sнσшτιϻε

Hakuryuu has long since learned that the secret to true freedom in society is to be as invisible as possible. Of course, his invisibility is not like Judal's: there are no mirrors or diversions or cheering crowds. No magic. No, Hakuryuu's invisibility is about pleases and thank yous, about assimilation and clean suits. About a voice with no hint of an accent and a smile that shows nothing but placid amenability.

He is not a man who feels these things inwardly, but we all have our masks we must wear to be seen as the men we wish to be.

They take to the streets, the two of them, with Judal leading the charge to this "Grand Hall of Magicians" that he claims exists and holds his heart, and Hakuryuu trailing behind him, now painfully reminded of how much Judal has always eschewed invisibility. His hair is as long as ever, a swaying train behind him, and his clothes are bright and flashy. Hakuryuu just prays, prays to whatever wants to listen, that anyone still wandering the streets at this ungodly hour takes Judal's dishevelment as being from revelry, and not teleporting into an old friend's room in a plume of fire.

He leads them through the streets, down paths that seem random but soon become too familiar to Hakuryuu. He feels regret and resentment rise up like bile in his throat as they slow to stare up at his family's abandoned estate.

"Judal... " He says, sucking in a breath. "No one has lived here in a long time. If your secret cabal of-"

But Judal just waves a hand to silence him. "I've been somewhere else for a long time, Hakuryuu, and I can guarantee you, there is a lot more to this than can be seen. Or unseen." He takes a deep breath and then shakes out, from head to toe, like he always did before his performances, getting every muscle loose and ready to spring. From somewhere, he's pulled his wand. Hakuryuu never did figure out where he hides it. 

But it's different than his regular tricks this time. Judal says words that spark the air like fire crackers, and when he waves his wand the world shifts like a ship capsizing. Hakuryuu staggers into him, and Judal is ready with an arm out to catch him. Hakuryuu pushes away with less effort than intended.

"Let's just find your heart."

The halls of his home are full of old ghosts- memories burned like a photo negative into space itself. He swears he sees eyes in the corners of his vision, hooded figures watching around all the corners, but when he turns his head they vanish like smoke. Judal has an iron grip on his shoulder, and Hakuryuu wonders if he sees the same thing. The ghosts are silent. The house is silent. All is silent save their footsteps. And so they walk, deeper and deeper into the halls that twist and turn until Hakuryuu stops short.

"This is wrong," he says. "We should have reached a dead end by now."

Judal grunts. "Yeah, well… This isn't necessarily the house you knew." He cocks his head to the side and glances at Hakuryuu. 

Hakuryuu sighs heavily and tries to listen. Judal is good at plans, but waiting, patience? Not his forte. He closes his eyes and waits to hear Judal's heartbeat. Judal fidgets beside him, begins to object, but Hakuryuu elbows him. And then, he hears it. 

"This way," 

Now that he hears it, the path is easy to find. Up stairs, through passages, past fake walls that never existed before, until, in a room that is not his bedroom and yet is, he finds it. The box is smallish, and long, somewhat like a pen case, and now that he is close, Hakuryuu knows with the certainty of dreams that it is what they seek, and he walks to take it.

There is a word that is used at time: aweful. While it may some day lose its meaning, come to mean nothing but ill, it is indeed a word with a meaning two-fold: inspiring of awe and terror, of the dreadful and divine. Hakuryuu stared into the great, staring eye of the universe, of magic, of everything, and felt his every fiber insignificant. His hand freezes above the box, the box that pulses like a heart lost, and there is nothing in the world. His throat is stopping, he cannot breath, he cannot think, and there is only the roar of-

"Hakuryuu!"

  
  
  


Hakuryuu snatches the box up, staggering back from the burst of power and into Judal.

"Let's go," Judal hisses, grabbing Hakuryuu by the arm and snatching the box from his hands as he wheels him away. All around there is a sound of crackling fire, and a great ripping rushing like a dock being shattered by a storm, and they run. They run through the dark halls and passages that twist and turn as before, yet all anew, and the world is rent asunder around them. 

There is a yowl from deep within the house, dreadful and terrible, that chills both men to their core. It is their name. It is a voice they know far too well. It is a voice that is dying, being swallowed up, destroyed by the weight of its own lingering wickedness. Judal hesitates, and it is Hakuryuu who pulls him along. He will not be consumed. They will not be consumed. 

They burst out into the dark, cool night, and do not stop running until they are past the gate. There they turn, and look back, and see. They see the house, the fortress, the prison that dogged them, shatter in twain from dreadful magics, until the earth itself split open and swallow it whole. And so falls the House of Ren.

ιv. cυятαιη cαℓℓ

There's a strange magic to the early light of pre-dawn. Hakuryuu huddles in his coat next to Judal, wondering at the slow blinking out of the stars and the stunning sights he's just seen. His fingers find Judal's, and he squeezes them for comfort. Judal leans his head into Hakuryuu. 

"You know, you had a point," Judal says, slow and soft. "The dead don't just come back." Hakuryuu sucks in a breath. To reply seems like it would break the spell, and once the magic's broken it just doesn't come back. Judal keeps talking, and Hakuryuu hates it. "Aww, don't go and cry. I thought you were done being a crybaby."

"Where did you go, Judal?" Hakuryuu asks, his hand gripping Judal's tighter. There's a distance that has nothing to do with proximity. The silence that follows his question is almost as terrible as the words that came before. "Where were you?"

Yet more of that terrible silence, but there are words to be found in what Judal does. He sucks in a breath, he worries at some split ends in a piece of his bangs. His eyes cast everywhere but Hakuryuu. Well, everywhere save the sky. Hakuryuu finds himself looking up at the fading stars above and wondering what they hold that Judal is so afraid to speak of. Hakuryuu squeezes Judal's hand. I am here. And so are you. 

"I disappeared." 

Hakuryuu almost says "Well, I know that," but he stops himself. He has to wait. Judal swallows thickly and waves a hand with no real purpose. Hakuryuu keeps his eyes on Judal's face: the hand is a distraction, just like it is in any magic trick. The tight lines of Judal's mouth begin to betray the wires that make the perfect facade work. Hakuryuu is patient. 

It's a piercing laugh at first, but then the laugh turns into the words. "You saw, after all. When we were back there. Magic is more than just a trick for me. And so, when I had to hide, I did that. I made myself disappear." He fusses at Hakuryuu's coat. "More like unexist I suppose. Or exist somewhere else? I'm not really sure how it all works." He sighs this time, and his whole body goes sort of slack, his eyes far away. Hakuryuu curls his other hand up and strokes Judal's hair. "I went somewhere far, far away, and I couldn't get back. Couldn't send word. Do you think I would have left you behind? Never!" 

And Hakuryuu chuckles a little at that, because he knows it's the truth. The laughter seems to sooth Judal a little, and when he chuckles along it doesn't sound like sharp and dreadful armor.

"But, right... I went somewhere far away, and now that I've been there, I no longer really belong here." Judal pulls the stolen box from his pocket and turns it over in his hands. It's small, too small to hold a real heart, and Hakuryuu wonders if he'll get to see what's inside. "The magic I did to come home was temporary. When the sun's all up? Poof. I'll be gone." Hakuryuu grips Judal's hand a little tighter, and Judal replies by curling into him. "I.. I'm going to miss this." 

"What?" Hakuryuu replies. "Don't be daft."

"No, I mean it! I know I never really said it enough, Hakuryuu, but I really lo-"

Hakuryuu grabs Judal's lapel to yank him up into a kiss. They kiss like men drowning, as though the other is their last chance for air. "Don't be an idiot," Hakuryuu hisses when they pull away. "You're never going where I can't follow ever again."

Judal looks dumbstruck for a moment, his mouth still hanging a little open from the kiss. "Oh." He manages, before grinning back and giving Hakuryuu another swift kiss. "Oh. I get it."

"Good."

Judal opens the stolen box, and inside there is a light that is not light, and it pulses to the beat of the universe, all memory and power and form and yet none of those things. It feels like Judal, and it hurts to look at it too long. Judal plucks his heart from the box and swallows it whole. 

Hakuryuu had forgotten how nice he looks when he swallows. 

"It's not so bad up there," Judal says as he springs to his feet. His skin seems to glow from within, lit with some unearthly light Hakuryuu has never seen in him before. It's beautiful. "Or down there? Wherever 'there' is, you know." He rolls his shoulders and grins. The sun has almost risen now. "I get the feeling that I'm supposed to be there, like there's something more I'm meant to do. So it'll be fine. It'll be fine." 

Fine has long been code for terrified in Judal's mixed up way of speaking. He holds out his hand to Hakuryuu, and Hakuryuu regards it like some sort of alien thing.

"What, are you afraid?" Judal teases, hiding his own feelings behind derision of Hakuryuu's hesitation.

There were always a great many things that scared Hakuryuu. His mother, long ago, and the thought that he might never amount to anything. Death scared him, but death isn't the question at hand. In honesty, Hakuryuu realizes, it is only the thought of that hand disappearing before he can take it that frightens him. 

Hakuryuu sets his hand in Judal's and grasps it tightly. "Of course not. I've got too much to do to be afraid." He smiles, perhaps to set Judal at ease. "You have things to do as well, you said. And you're hopeless without me." 

Judal breathes a sigh of relief that turns to wide grin, and he nods. "Yes, yes. Yes, I am."


End file.
